With the rapid progress being made in automatic machinery, particularly packaging and labeling equipment, as well as upstream processing equipment, it has become vitally important for the processing industry to be able to code mark packages or bottles or various other containers into which the processed products are packed so as to identify the goods and provide statistical information such as date of processing, lot numbers, shift numbers, etc., which data enables the processor to compile data useful in carrying out the processing phase or identifying which products were manufactured at what time, by what shift, from what shift, from what raw material source, under what conditions, just to mention a few of the facts of value to a processing operation. Thus a whole specialized industry, known as the code marking industry, has sprung up in recent years and which is devoted to the design and manufacture of printing apparatus adapted to code or date number individual items or individual packages or containers passing through a continuous production processing line. The code marking or code dating industry has thus developed a vast array of printing devices ranging from specailized printing machines including product conveyors and "spotters" to relatively simple printing devices adapted for incorporation into existing production equipment. It is with such latter devices that the instant invention deals.
Most prior art code printing devices adapted for incorporation into existing processing equipment have comprised some form of base or support which is bolted or otherwise positioned on a convenient frame piece of the processing equipment. The base carries a member usually a rotary member having a type face to imprint on the product or package passing the printing or coding station. The rotary printing member is usually actuated by contact of the product with some form of pivoted arm whereby the product itself moves the rotary member to effect the printing by contact of the type face area with the product or package. After the imprinting is completed and the article passes on down the processing line the rotary member returns automatically to a "null" or start position by some form of spring and cam operator in readiness for the next printing operation. Ordinarily, aside from the rolling contact printing member the base also carries some kind of inking device such as a saturated felt roller, wet from a reservoir of ink, which contacts the type face at each revolution of the rotating member to ink same for each printing. Typical examples of such devices can be found in Delligatti U.S. Pat. No. 3,808,970, Gottscho et al U.S. Pat. No. 2,632,383, Gross U.S. Pat. No. 2,834,287, and Casey U.S. Pat. No. 3,021,783, among others in this art.
Each of the noted patented devices has been found to perform satisfactorily in practical application and one version or the other has been commercially accepted in substantial numbers. However, each shares a common deficiency or deficiencies and that is the fact that the noted devices are relatively slow because after each contact with an article to be imprinted, they must return to the null position before being contacted by the next article on the processing line. Thus, too, the articles must be spaced to allow time for the "null" return before they contact the device. Also, due to the fact that the type face is contact inked from some form of ink roller, the ink must be periodically replenished and sometimes the entire processing line must be halted should the ink source run dry and replenishment be required in the course of a production run.